Extended Producer Responsibility

Purpose:
The learning program will support capacity building in governmental institutions as well as business associations in countries without current functioning extended producer responsibility but also in countries with upstarting EPR experiences.

Content:
EPR is a scheme to make the producers/companies who put products on the market responsible for the environmental impact of the product in its entire lifecycle. Focus has originally mainly been on managing the post-consumer waste, but it is increasingly seen as an instrument to provide incentives for circular innovation, i.e. design for recycling, waste reduction and product durability. EPR is anchored in the Polluter Pays Principle.
The course will give in-depth insights into different EPR systems, their creation, evolution over time, impacts and scope and how they feed into wider circular economy and green growth policies and strategies. The course’s main focus is on the making of such systems, both regulatory frameworks and EPR governance (organisational and financial systems) and how to implement and further develop EPR systems over time. EPR schemes are very complex and vary considerably in their set-up in different countries and across industries. We will investigate these differences looking for the best practices and particularly the innovative leaders who have managed to establish EPR systems with a high circular innovation impact. We will also draw important lessons learned from mistakes and suboptimal solutions. We will draw in both policy and business perspectives in assessing how policy makers, industry associations and companies are preparing and innovating for EPR will special attention to fruitful processes of stakeholder collaboration. Cases play a key role in the course, divided into sectoral cases for in depth analysis of the specificities, opportunities and challenges of different sectors, including considering which sectors should be targeted first.
The course will cover five core overarching themes, which will be addressed in depth in the sectoral cases:
• Concepts of EPR
• The multi stakeholder working process
• Legislative processes
• Data management, enforcement and monitoring
• Circular innovation impacts (recyclability, waste reduction, durability)

Target group:
Mixed stakeholders at medium management level already working on or interested in or planning to work on extended producer responsibility schemes. Participants may come from different stakeholders, e.g. business associations, companies, central and local authorities, utilities as well as specific EPR organizations.